


School Spirit

by MaryPSue



Category: Nightmare Dork University - Fandom, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, Multi, NDU - Freeform, Nightmare Dork University, how to even begin to explain this, quite frankly you had to be there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7019344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lives and times of a passel of Pitches trying to navigate university life, untangle their romantic entanglements, and somehow not murder each other.</p><p>(Or, a place to store fic from a surprisingly involved AU that mostly lived on tumblr. There's more of an explanation in the story notes, if you don't already know what's going on here and are brave enough to venture further.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, in the depths of tumblr, a ROTG fan-comic featuring movie!Pitch and book!Pitch forced to be roommates spawned an unholy mess of an AU based on multiple different iterations of Pitch (movie, book, concept art, Finnish dub) and one poor put-upon Jack, all as human college students attending (or working at) the same university. As this AU grew and mutated, it swallowed its own tail and introduced the original, superpowered, fear-focused monster Pitches back into the story, as...ghosts, for lack of a better word, plaguing their university-aged counterparts. This was where I came in.
> 
> Honestly this is mostly just a place to host all my fics set in that 'verse that isn't the notoriously fickle tumblr. I do not expect a single person who is not already familiar with NDU to open this, though if you do, more power to you and godspeed, happy reading! Here is [a quick rundown of how all this came to be and necessary background info on the characters](http://nightmaredorkarchive-blog.tumblr.com/NDU101), that hopefully will help to make some semblance of sense of...well, all of this.

This class has been dragging on for an hour.

Pitch rolls his eyes, stares at his watch, scribbles in his notes as the professor drones on. He’d signed up for this film study because he’d thought it would be interesting. He’d also thought they’d actually be watching movies, rather than just listening to a decrepit old man witter on. How is it possible to make a course entirely about the history of horror on film so _dull_?  

Not to mention, he could practically teach the class himself. The professor isn’t saying anything he hasn’t heard before, just rehashing the same tired old tropes and trivia. Pitch rolls his eyes again when the professor starts talking about _Jaws_ and the amount of time the shark spent onscreen, wondering just how often he’s rolled his eyes in the last hour. He guesses it’s not nearly as many times as he’s going to roll his eyes in the two hours that remain.

He glances down at his notes, and scowls at the mess he finds there. The notes scrawled across the page begins with good intentions, before quickly devolving into ‘blah, blah, blah’, incisive observations about the professor’s patterns of speech, and the occasional doodle in the margin.

“Do you really find this interesting?”

Pitch freezes in place. The pen drops from his fingers with a faint noise. Around him, the rest of the class doesn’t seem to have noticed anything out of the ordinary, dozing comfortably in their professorial-induced stupors. None of them seem to have heard the voice.

Somehow, Pitch isn’t surprised. After all, it’s his own.

He bites back an acerbic response. Talking to sourceless, directionless voices that no one else can hear isn’t exactly going to impress his sanity on the rest of the class. The voice that sounds eerily like his own continues, a note of boredom colouring its tones.

“Well, this is disappointing. And to think that I actually listened to that great oaf when he said that tormenting you lot was soo much fun.” A sigh, and a gust of chill air wafts against the back of Pitch’s neck, raising every hair along his spine. “You’re almost as dull as this pointless class – which, by the way, is eating up three precious hours of your life which could be spent actually working on one of those plays you’re constantly fussing over. Not that it would improve its quality enough to ever outshine your brother. We both know you’ll always be second-rate, compared to him,” the voice concludes, matter-of-factly. “But considering that you’re likely to drop dead before you can finish anything that might make them remember you, why waste your precious time listening to this…drivel?”

Pitch only realizes he’s clenched his hands into fists when he feels his fingernails dig into the heels of his hands.

There are a thousand things he could say, but the classroom is still silent save for the droning voice of the professor. So instead, he settles for the most infuriating response he can think of.

He ignores it.

Logically, there can’t be something in the classroom talking in his voice, parading around some of his deepest insecurities (not that he’d ever admit to them), so obviously there isn’t. The only rational course of action would be to act accordingly. Pitch nods, sitting up a little straighter in his seat, and picks up his pen again, turning his full attention back to the professor.

“You’re not actually listening to this, are you?” the voice continues. It no longer seems sourceless; rather, it’s speaking directly into his ear, and Pitch whirls. The face that smirks back at him is not quite like looking into a funhouse mirror. It’s not distorted – well, not by much, although its lines and angles seem just a little sharper, a little more exaggerated, a little less human. The whole uncanny valley aspect of the face is far more unnerving than its grayish pallor or gold-coin eyes, or even the smirk it wears.

The pen snaps in Pitch’s grip.

Over the shoulder of the shadowy hallucination, a girl looks up, notices that Pitch is staring in her general direction, and gives him a dirty look. The one he gives her in return is, obviously, vastly superior, and she turns back to her notes, shaking her head.

It’s too late now to really pretend he hasn’t heard or seen anything, but Pitch does his level best, rubbing furiously at the black ink that’s spilled all over his hand. Something tells him that leaving the classroom to wash it off is the single biggest mistake he could make right now, so he stays silent, trying not to acknowledge the too-long fingers that catch his shoulders in a chill and unbreakable grip, the words that pour into his ears like poison.

“You could be spending what little time you have left with that unbearable musclebound ape you call a boyfriend – oh, but you don’t call him that, do you? You’re too afraid that you’ll get attached and the pain when he leaves will be more than you can bear. Well, let me set your mind at ease. You’re already attached, and when he leaves it will – Interview with the Vampire? _Really_?”

There’s something off about that sentence. Pitch risks a look up, to see his nightmare counterpart frozen in place, giving the oblivious professor a look that is one part snake-about-to-strike and one part cat-whose-dinner-has-been-withheld. He tries, experimentally, to wriggle out of the hallucination’s grip, but it only digs its fingers in harder and continues to glare at the professor, its upper lip curling as the man continues to talk about Anne Rice novels put to film.

“I thought this class couldn’t possibly be interesting?” Pitch mutters, under his breath, and the confused looks from the people to either side of him are worth it to see the look on his hallucination’s face.

“ _Interesting_?” The word is little more than a snarl. “Not a chance. Insulting, perhaps, or demeaning, or - oh, he’s _not_ going to call them _horror_ films -” He bites the sentence off with a groan. “When will you lot get it through your thick skulls that just because it has monsters in it -”

Pitch finds he’s waiting for the rest of the sentence, but it doesn’t come. The hallucination is looking down over his shoulder, its almost-luminous eyes narrowing as it surveys his notes. One spidery gray hand darts out and snatches the top page of his notes. The hallucination holds the sheet of ruled paper almost to its nose, its expression quickly turning from peevish to apoplectic. “What _is_ this?”

Pitch can’t keep a narrow smile from his face.

“Law of conservation of shark? _Psycho_? Tension and release -” The hallucination lowers the page, and Pitch gets the full force of its glare. “ _This_ unimaginative specimen is trying to teach _you_ to be frightening? You don’t need to study scaring, you just do it!”

Pitch shrugs slightly, his smirk growing wider, and the hallucination glowers at him, leaning forward. It suddenly strikes Pitch just how tall the shadowy figure is, how much it looms over him.

“If you really want to learn about terror,” the hallucination says, and the last traces of exasperated humanity vanish completely, leaving its voice cold and smooth and just strange enough to be really unnerving. Its face grows more and more obscured by shadow the closer it leans to Pitch’s face, until all that’s visible is a glint of eyes and wicked smile. “Well. I’ll be waiting.”

For some reason, when the shadowy figure disappears, Pitch is less than reassured.


	2. Chapter 2

Moving the coffeemaker into his room is the best decision Pitch has made all year. He takes a sip of bitter black brew, listening to the soothing gurgle of the next pot as it percolates. This should be enough to keep him awake well into the night.

The computer screen in front of him glows softly, his scriptwriting program the only illumination in the dark room. He’d ‘gone to bed’ hours earlier, and if Pitchiner saw a light on in his room there’d be a tedious argument and he’d lose more precious writing time. So, Pitch works in the dark. It’s the right ambience for the play in question, anyway.

He’s so engrossed in trying to put his vision into words that he barely notices the soft creak of the wardrobe door, the way the hairs along the back of his neck slowly stand to attention. All he notices is that the room suddenly feels colder, and it takes him several long moments to realise he’s being watched.

Pitch looks up, spinning his chair around to face the intruder. Eyes, glinting silver in the light of the computer screen, stare down at him, and a smile cuts a jagged gash in the dark before a thin, pale face he knows from the other side of the mirror emerges ominously from the shadows.

Pitch breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god, a hallucination. I was worried it might be Mr. Pickles.”

Said hallucination freezes, its smile vanishing. “Hallucination? Me?”

“Yes, you,” Pitch answers, turning back to his computer.

Behind him, the nightmare-thing sputters. “I am _not_ a product of _your_ feeble mind! I am Pitch Black! _I_   am the Boogeyman! I have stalked the halls of the pyramids, the forests of Romania, the streets of Whitechapel and Salem, I have haunted cathedrals and catacombs. When man first conquered fire I was the shadow on the cave wall. I am the monster under your bed, the chill down your spine, I am Fear incarnate and _you aren’t even listening, are you?_ ”

Pitch glances up from his screen, fixing his nightmare-self with his best contemptuous glare, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart in his chest. “Oh yes, you’re a very scary monster. I heard you. I just don’t care.”

The hallucination looks like it’s about to throw a temper tantrum. It stops just on the edge of shouting, visibly collecting itself, and takes one slow step towards Pitch, who swallows nervously despite himself.

“And I suppose you care more about this…drivel you’re working yourself to death trying to write?” it asks, soft and dangerous, looking past Pitch at the computer screen.

He knows he’s rising to the bait, but Pitch still snaps, “It’s not drivel.”

“Oh really?” The nightmare creature leans over him as though he isn’t even there, in order to read over his shoulder. It affects a high-pitched voice, an eerie mockery of a small girl, when it reads aloud the last line Pitch had written. “ ‘Jack, I’m scared!’? Tell me, are you acquainted with the concept of ‘show, don’t tell’?”

Pitch crosses his arms over his chest and tries to pretend that his proximity to the hallucination isn’t making him nervous. “That’s all very well for novelists, and people whose actors actually possess the least modicum of talent. Or at the very least, who actually listen to their director. If you saw the kind of lunkheads _I_ get to work with, you’d understand. There’s no way anyone in the audience is going to know how Pippa’s supposed to be feeling unless I make her spell it out for them.” He’s warming to his theme, the nervous babble turning into an ordinary tirade, and he almost forgets who it is that he’s complaining to. “I have no idea who let that girl into the drama department; she couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. Not that the rest of them are much better.”

The hallucination gives him a very strange look, halfway between uncomfortable and appraising.

“Have you ever worked with actors?” Pitch asks, just to fill the sudden echoing silence, aware as he does so just how absurd the question is. His nightmare-self smiles, or, at least, shows its snaggled teeth.

“Oh, yes. They’re such lovely buffets of superstition and nervous energy.”

“Not these ones,” Pitch retorts, darkly. “Drama students are, without a doubt, the biggest egomaniacs I have _ever_ encountered.” He ignore the way his counterpart’s grin widens at this. “There’s no room for nerves in their heads. They’re already too full of themselves. And they all think they’re such theatrical geniuses! Did you know that my lead is trying to tell _me_ how he should play his scenes? Me! And he’s not the only one!” Pitch gestures wildly in the general direction of his computer. “They’d probably try to stage a coup if they weren’t so scared of me -”

His nightmare counterpart arches a nonexistent eyebrow at that. “ _Try_ to? Tell me, have you ever worked with nightmares?”

“You…don’t mean in plays, do you,” Pitch answers warily, and the hallucination laughs, one short snicker.

“A day or two with those beasts and you’ll be begging for your drama students back.”

“I doubt that,” Pitch mutters. His counterpart’s smile widens.

“Hmm. Perhaps we’ll have to put it to the test.”

Before Pitch can ask what he means by that, the door bursts open, spilling yellow light into the room. Koz’ familiar bulk is silhouetted against it, and Pitch groans to himself, shutting the laptop with a snap and trying not to look guilty.

“It’s almost three in the fucking morning,” Pitchiner growls, flicking on the light. Pitch winces, blinking against the sudden glare. “Who the _fuck_ are you yelling at?”

Pitch glances over at the empty space where the hallucination had stood, only moments before. “…myself.”

Koz stares at him for just long enough that Pitch starts to fidget. “Get your ass into bed, darling,” he finally grumbles. He turns to leave, but stops just outside the door. “And _put the fucking coffeemaker back_.”

Pitch moves to unplug it, and Koz sighs. “In the morning, dear.”

“It is morning.”

Koz only grunts, and slams the door behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

Pitch turns around to ask Coz where he’s left his bike, and the world goes black.

It’s only for an instant, a flicker of glittering darkness, before everything resolves itself again. He shakes his head, trying to brush off the sudden dizziness that accompanies the momentary loss of vision. It’s strange, disconcerting, but as everything seems to be just as it was, he sums it up to nothing more than a head rush and tries to carry on as before.

Except that suddenly, Coz is ignoring him.

“So just where is this rusty deathtrap on wheels?” Pitch asks. He bites his tongue when his question goes unanswered, and his subsequent caustic inquiries as to the state of his not-boyfriend’s hearing and general awareness fall on deaf ears. “Are you even listening to me? Is anything penetrating that thick skull of yours? Tell me you didn’t get another concussion. Any more brain damage and I’ll have a carrot for a b– roommate.” He catches himself just in time.

Nothing. No sign that he’s been heard, not even so much as the beginnings of a glare at the remark about the concussion, something he’d thought for sure would at least touch a nerve. He’s just beginning to wonder if Coz really has gone deaf, or if something has happened to his own voice, when Pitchiner looks up from the helmet he’s been frowning thoughtfully at, and smiles.

It’s a challenge to contain his relief. Pitch sighs, and rolls his eyes in a vain attempt to hide it. “Finally. You know, you ought to clean out your ears if you’re going to -”

“Oh, hey, Piki,” Coz interrupts him, and Pitch sputters to a halt.

“ _Piki_?! What is this, some sort of joke?” His voice drops to an angry hiss. “I should hope you’d be able to tell the guy you’re fucking from his own twin brother -”

“A pleasant afternoon to you as well, Cossimo.” Piki’s smarmy, pretentious greeting comes from directly behind Pitch, who realizes too late that Pitchiner isn’t looking _at_ him, but rather _through_ him. “I trust it finds you well?”

“Better than you.” Coz laughs, scratching the back of his neck. “Honestly, I’m a little amazed you could even walk when you left this morning.”

It takes only a fraction of a second for the implications to sink in, but when they do, Pitch nearly chokes on his own spit. He gags exaggeratedly and hurriedly backs away, suddenly not really wanting to be in between the two. “There are some things that should not even be joked about. And this ceased to be funny about five minutes ago, when it first started,” he complains, but neither his now-blushing brother nor his roommate seem to notice. They don’t break eye contact as Coz crosses the two feet of open space between them, and if the kiss he plants on Piki is an act, then Pitchiner must have become an acting god overnight.

Pitch wants to say something – no, to _shout_ something, or maybe break something, blow something up, perhaps, whatever it takes to make them look at him. Make them stop looking at each other like – like some kind of –

“I’m _right here_ ,” he growls, knowing even as he does that he won’t be heard. He should be incandescent with anger, he knows, and maybe he will be in another moment, but right now Coz has slung an arm around Piki’s narrow waist – casually, naturally, like he doesn’t even care who sees – and pulled him close, and all Pitch can feel is strangely hollow.

“I’m right here,” he repeats, but the venom has gone out of it.

“Need a ride home?” Coz asks, and Piki’s smile turns coy, knowing, even as he pulls the other down for another kiss, tender and lingering, without even a hint of the bruising, almost hateful force that always marks Coz and Pitch’s kisses.

“Is that an invitation?”

“What do you think?” The wicked grin that Pitchiner turns on Piki makes Pitch clench his hands into fists so hard that he feels blood welling up underneath his fingernails. That smile is _his_ , has always and only been for _him_ \- _!_ “C’mon, you know you wanna take a ride on my motorbike.”

“Oh, please don’t resort to crude innuendo,” Piki sighs, but the exasperation in his voice is clearly feigned, barely covering a sickeningly-sweet layer of deep affection. “If you must make veiled sexual references, at least couch them in poetry.”

“Do people even do that? I thought poetry was all…existential crises and thinly-veiled Biblical allegories and flowers and shit.”

The smile Piki gives Pitchiner is conspiratorial, and the sick gnawing emptiness that has taken up residence in the pit of Pitch’s stomach threatens to rise up and swallow him whole. “Do you know what part of the plant the flower is?”

Pitchiner’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and the smirk that plays across his lips is less than innocent. “Huh. Maybe I should be reading more poetry.”

“I’ll have to introduce you to the Romantics. I’m sure they’d be right up your alley.” Piki twines his fingers through Pitchiner’s, a ridiculous little gesture that nevertheless is somehow the final straw for Pitch.

“All right, that is _enough_ ,” he snaps, marching forward until he’s face-to-face with his erstwhile lover. Coz still won’t meet his eyes, and for some reason this fills Pitch with a nameless, formless black dread, a dread he tries to drown out by raising his voice. “You’ve had your laugh, but this joke is -”

He’s cut off abruptly when Piki starts forward, pulling Coz along after him. Pitch steps out in front of him, intending to cut them off by any means necessary. He knows that trying to use physical force against Pitchiner, who could probably bench-press two of him without breaking a sweat, isn’t the wisest of plans, but the dread is quickly turning to panic, rising like bile in his throat, and he just wants some sort of reassurance that he is there, that he exists, that this is all some horrible mistake.

He doesn’t get it.

Instead, with a feeling not unlike the weightlessness of freefalling, not unlike the wind whipping around him as they speed down the highway on the deathtrap that Pitchiner calls a motorbike, and yet somehow exactly unlike anything Pitch has felt before, Pitchiner walks right through him.

Coz doesn’t glance back. He doesn’t so much as shiver. He just hurries to catch up with Piki, leaving Pitch feeling like his heart and lungs have been physically ripped from his chest. Pitch clutches weakly at it, trying to assure himself that this is not the case. What just happened is impossible, it can’t be real, he must have imagined –

There’s another feeling like being doused in cold water, like being turned inside out, and a freshman girl with bright, multicoloured hair hurries through him. He doesn’t have time to recover before another girl follows her, and he reels out of the way, looking around for any more approaching students. His fingers curl into the fabric of his sleeves, seeking reassurance that he still has form, still has solidity, and he only dimly hears the sputtering roar of the motorcycle’s engine kicked into gear over the rush of blood in his ears. It doesn’t matter, though. For all that he can feel the life in him, the solid body under his fingers, he’s less than a wraith to the rest of the world.

He doesn’t matter. He doesn’t _exist_.

He’s been replaced, erased from the world as surely as if he’d never been. They don’t see him. They don’t remember him. And they don’t care. They can’t even tell that anything’s missing.

This can’t be happening. It has to be –

_A nightmare?_

The thought is oily somehow, insidious and slippery and as dark as the shadows that rise up to envelop him.

…

He wakes to the mingled sounds of steady beeping and intermittent snores.

It takes him far too long to wrap his head around the wires and tubes and screens and beeping things and figure out that he has not, in fact, been beamed up to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, but is lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to more monitors than Proto has dubious cooking experiments moldering in the back of the fridge. And the snoring is emanating from beneath a coat which lies draped over the unmistakable figure of Pitchiner, slumped in a chair by the bed with his head thrown back and a book lying open and forgotten on his lap.

Pitch blanks at that. How long has Coz been there?

For that matter, how long has _he_ been here? And why is he in a hospital bed, of all places? The last thing he remembers is – is –

Pitch is sure that he’s gone as white as the flimsy hospital gown he’s wrapped in.

He reaches over as far as he can without yanking the IV tube from the back of his hand, which brings him just within reach of Pitchiner’s shoulder. He hesitates a moment, remembering what happened last time he tried to touch someone else, some lingering doubt of his own solidity freezing him in his tracks. At last, though, he reaches out and delivers one good, hard shove to his roommate’s arm. Pitch bites back a sigh of relief when his hand makes contact, instead of going through, and nearly shouts Pitchiner’s name in his excitement.

Coz jolts awake and looks around like he’s expecting to have to duck and cover, and mutters a confused “where’s the fire?” before his eyes settle on Pitch and he relaxes. “You’re awake!”

“Of course I’m awake,” Pitch snaps, trying and failing to keep his relief from bleeding into his voice. “What happened? Why am I here? When do I get outagain?”

“Whoa, slow down, will you? You just gave yourself a fuckin’ _seizure_ from running around like your ass is on fire.” Coz straightens up, rolling his neck with a series of pops that make Pitch wince. “You can lie still for once in your damn life.”

“You’re swearing more than usual,” Pitch remarks, with forced casualness, inspecting the needle that hooks the IV into his hand as though it’s some fascinating specimen of extraterrestrial life. “Were you worried?”

There’s an explosion of air that is most likely Coz trying not to blow his top. “Are you fucking kidding me? You passed right the fuck out two steps away from me! Of course I was worried, you stupid scrawny scarecrow.”

Pitch can’t help a small smile at that. “I missed you too, you overgrown meathead.”

…

The nurse catches them kissing when the monitor recording Pitch’s heart rate suddenly spikes, beeping wildly and frantically with the pace of his fluttering pulse. She’s one of only two adult women he’s met on whom Pitchiner’s old-fashioned charm has failed to work, unfortunately, and under her disapproving glare, makeout sessions suddenly become considerably less appealing. Coz leaves, promising (or perhaps threatening) to pick up where they left off as soon as Pitch gets healed up enough to haul his skinny ass out of bed.

The nurse takes Pitch’s vitals with a thoroughly disinterested air, managing to fill the entire room with her disapproval, and scribbles extensively in his charts while refusing to acknowledge a word he says. After a few fruitless efforts to engage her in conversation, Pitch gives up, trying not to surrender to the unpleasant niggling worry that the dream or vision or _whatever_ has left with him. Still, he finds himself turning back to the door more often than he’d care to admit, wishing that Pitchiner or maybe Jack or even Proto would walk in, just for someone to talk to, someone to remind him that he’s still here.

He may or may not make some small, wistful noise when he realizes Coz has left his book lying in the chair he’d fallen asleep in. Now he knows Pitchiner will haveto come back,it’s a little easier to relax.

At least, until he realizes that the shadow against the far wall isn’t a shadow at all.

“Go away,” Pitch mutters, as the nightmare creature that shares his face grins and glides over to his bedside. The nurse’s head snaps up, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she merely gives him a suspicious glare and turns back to his charts.

“You’re afraid of losing him.”

Pitch doesn’t deign to respond to that.

“You’re in love with him.”

“You’re a hallucination,” Pitch snaps, and said hallucination scowls. The nurse glances back up, and this time the look she gives Pitch is long and searching. He has little doubt she’ll be double-checking for drugs in any bloodwork he might have had done as soon as she’s done staring him down.

He meets her eye, and gives her the most poisonous, superior look he can muster from a half-reclined position. “And I’ve seen better hair on mouldy vegetables.”

The nurse’s eyes go wide, her mouth forms a perfect ‘o’, and she pats her steel-gray coif as though making sure it’s still there. The nightmare-creature raises a single hairless eyebrow appreciatively as she gathers up the charts and huffs out of the room like a small gray stormcloud scudding across a clear sky, leaving Pitch alone with himself.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mumbles, finally, rolling over in bed to face away from his counterpart’s shark-toothed grin.

“Did you enjoy the nightmare?”

“What do you think.”

The room seems to grow several shades darker as the creature draws closer to the bed, looming over Pitch. “It was effective, though, wasn’t it?”

Pitch doesn’t answer that, either. If he shuts his eyes, he can still feel an echo of the ice-water sensation of being walked through, the chilly certainty of his ultimate nonexistence, of his utter insignificance in the eyes of the world.

“Believe me,” the creature with his face says, soft and treacherously sweet, right into his ear, “there are many, many more where that came from.”

Pitch pulls the pillow up and over his head, pressing it over his ears in a vain attempt to shut out the voice. It’s not enough; there’s a faint ghosting of chilly breath against his ear, and the softest of whispers, so quiet that he’s not certain, at first, that he hasn’t imagined it, breathes, “And they’re all oh, so _hungry_.”

He doesn’t move the pillow until he’s sure that the shadows are no longer alive. He peels it away cautiously, tentatively, then more boldly when no monstrous creatures or horrible whispering voices greet him. Breathing a sigh of relief, Pitch rolls over –

And once again, is invisible, nonexistent, walked through, falling through a thousand endless miles of dark -

He wakes with a start, and his shriek brings the nurse running, her concern quickly turning to unsympathetic disapproval when she sees who it is and that he’s screaming for no good reason. She takes the chance to check his monitors, and then leaves him alone in the dark, with the admonition that he should sleep.

Pitch doesn’t.

He doesn’t think he’ll be sleeping again any time soon. Or ever again.


	4. Chapter 4

Jack had thought that once he left, things would get easier.

He should have known. He should have _known_. Nothing ever got easier for him – nothing _should_ get easier for him, not when he was the author of all of his own miseries. Still, he’d been audacious enough to hope –

It was a misplaced, greedy hope, one that quickly burned itself out for lack of fuel.

Jack never knew when it would hit him, what tiny thing would trigger it. He’d go for entire weeks without thinking of Piki once, without anything more than the low-level background static of guilt that he’s lived with since – well, _since_. He could curl up and read for hours without stopping to stifle his sobs; he could make a meal for one without constantly thinking about how he should be making it for two. He’d even forget, sometimes, that he was supposed to feel guilty.

And that was always the worst, because he’d remember all at once, and then the truth that always dogged at his heels would hammer itself into his chest, cracking it wide open, filling his lungs and his throat with crackling ice. _He’d forgotten to feel guilty_. He’d done it again, he’d _failed_ , he’d let down someone he cared about more than his own life (which, these days, wasn’t saying much) and he hadn’t even spared a thought for them in the aftermath. Had shrugged off his own responsibility, while they couldn’t. While Piki was being crushed – _drowned_ – under the weight of Jack’s carelessness, Jack’s selfishness.

He’d stand frozen in front of supermarket shelves, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of memories and guilt at the sight of a brand that Piki preferred, wondering whether Piki was eating without him, whether it would be better or worse if he wasn’t. Knocked backwards by a fresh surge of guilt at the realization of how selfish it was to want Piki to be as afflicted as he, himself, was. How selfish, how utterly cruel, it had been to leave in the first place. But how much crueler would it have been to let it go on? After all, hadn’t Jack been using Piki just as much as Piki had used him? Hadn’t they both curled into each other to shut out the rest of the world? Wouldn’t it have been even more selfish to stay? What was worse, to be the coward who couldn’t leave, even knowing that Piki would be better off without him, or to be the monster who could just walk away from someone who needed him?

Jack managed to go a month away from Piki before he was forced to admit that things were not getting easier.

…

It started with a slow and steady dripping, not quite insistent enough to be a tap that either he or his cousin had left neglectfully dribbling, but not quite soft enough to be coming from outside the window. Jack squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could and dug his nails into the heels of his hands, pushing a little harder with every drip.

The soft padding of bare feet across the carpet was hatefully familiar by now. Jack tried to keep his breathing even and steady, tried to pretend that he was still asleep despite how white his knuckles must be against the blankets pulled up around his chin.

It did him no good. Chill fingers brushed along his jaw, cold and oddly damp, and Jack just had time to reflect that his double’s touch didn’t burn into his skin like frostbite before those fingers shifted down, brushing Jack’s fingers lightly before they yanked the blankets away.

Jack’s eyes shot open at the sudden rush of cold air, an involuntary shiver setting his shoulders shaking. He hardly noticed, though, forgetting his pretense of unconsciousness at the sight before him.

His perpetually-frozen double was melting.

No, Jack quickly corrected himself, taking in the faint hint of colour in the usually colourless creature’s face, the slender shape now visible under what remained of the usual coating of icicles. Not melting. _Thawing_.

He shrank back against the wall, not certain what this development meant or if it meant anything at all. His double gave him a soft smile, one which somehow looked less predatory than those of before, and slipped out of the too-familiar blue hooded sweatshirt, icicles tinkling against each other as he tossed it into a corner. An icy hand clenched around Jack’s heart, the memories of previous encounters bobbing to the surface of his mind, and he curled further into himself, squeezing his eyes shut again. It was futile to fight against this ghost; he could no more banish it than any of his other ghosts, and he hoped, silently, that it would take what it wanted quickly and leave him alone.

The bed dipped under the sudden added weight of another body, and Jack stiffened at the feeling of cool fingers brushing his shoulders. He didn’t uncoil as his doppelganger pulled himself in close, but as the minutes dragged by and the creature did nothing but hold him, Jack found sleep creeping up on him again in a great black wave, lethargy seeping through his bones and making it hard to remain on his guard. He caught himself relaxing into the chilly arms around him, and tried to pull away, but his double only held him a little closer, pulling the covers up over them both.

Much as he tried to fight it off, sleep eventually conquered Jack again, and the last thing he knew before he drifted off was the strange comfort of another presence there with him, someone else’s arms around him, and cool lips pressed once, chastely, to his forehead.

…

In the morning, there was no trace of the creature.

Jack might have written it off as a dream, save for the fact that he woke feeling more peaceful than he had in a month. And there was a slight damp spot in the corner where it had dropped its hoodie.


	5. What Not To Wear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rule 63 because reasons. Some homophobic language in this one.

Pitch opened the front door to the sound of cursing.

Her key had barely turned in the lock before a barrage of angry invectives flooded the front room. “What in the name of -” Pitch muttered, as a fresh explosion nearly shook the handful of pictures from the walls.

She followed the sound of inventive and impassioned swearing to the door of Pitchiner’s room, where her knocks went unanswered. Finally, Pitch pushed the door open, only to be struck smack in the face by something soft and floppy.

Pitch reached up and cautiously unwrapped the offending object from around her head, biting her tongue as she looked down to see just what had hit her. She’d scream at Cosima once she knew exactly what she was screaming  _about_.

It was a dress.

To be exact, it was a candy-apple red, sleeveless bandage dress. Pitch blinked, her irritation suddenly replaced by confusion. She’d never seen Cosima in anything remotely like this, and the mental image might have been attractive if it hadn’t been so completely incongruous.

“What are you doing?” Pitch demanded, looking up to see Pitchiner standing by her closet, surrounded by drifts of clothing lying in crumpled heaps at her feet. Cosima glanced up from her excavation of the closet, a guilty smile supplanting her look of sheer unbridled rage at the sight of Pitch holding the dress.

“Oh, sorry, babe. Did I get you?”

“With unerring accuracy,” Pitch deadpanned. “That doesn’t explain why you’re flinging around formalwear in the first place.”

Pitchiner’s grin crumbled almost instantly. “No reason,” she muttered, aiming a kick at something Pepto-Bismol pink and covered with a positively abominable number of ruffles. She missed, and swore half-heartedly. “Dammit.”

“No, really. Why does your room look like a high school prom exploded all over it?” Pitch demanded, picking her way across the minefield of satin and sequins to perch on the bed beside Cosima’s open suitcase. “Planning a trip?”

Pitchiner swore again, under her breath. “Home,” she ground out, picking up a satiny emerald-coloured blouse with a ruffle at the throat, wrinkling her nose, and throwing it at the suitcase, which it missed by a foot. “My parents want the whole family back for Christmas.”

Pitch nodded. “Packing is always the hardest part of any trip, having to decide what you can bear to leave behind -”

She was cut off by a snort from Pitchiner. “Yeah, I wish. More like deciding what to _bring_ that doesn’t make me look like a monster truck stuffed into a fairy princess dress for a two-year-old.” She glared down at the mound of clothes at her feet, and kicked the pink ruffled monstrosity so viciously that it flew across the room and smacked against the wall, sliding limply down like a wounded bird. Pitch watched it fall, lips pursed, the seed of an idea beginning to bloom in her mind.

“Well, the solution is obvious,” she said, and Cosima laughed.

“Oh, of course. I’ll just stay here for Christmas.”

“Of course not.” Pitch took advantage of Pitchiner’s confusion to repay the favour, taking a wicked delight in tossing the red dress directly at her girlfriend’s face. “Two words: fashion show.”

…

Seventeen increasingly awful dresses and countless creative variations on the phrase ‘monster truck in a fairy princess dress’ later, Pitch was forced to concede that no, Pitchiner did not in fact possess a single dress that looked good on her.

“How have you _managed_ for this long?” Pitch asked, holding up a particularly odious strapless dress in an unflattering shade of shimmery baby-poo green by the tip of one finger and her thumb. It couldn’t possibly have been anything but a bridesmaid dress, she concluded, before dropping it daintily on the reject pile.

Pitchiner, stepping out of a blue dress that looked about twelve years too young for her, shrugged, and Pitch took a moment to appreciate the way the muscles of her back stood out against her skin. “I don’t wear dresses. It’s not a problem. Or at least it isn’t a problem for _me_.”

“Then why are you bothering to try to find one for Christmas?”

Cosima froze for an instant before straightening up, stretching a little too casually, and Pitch narrowed her eyes. “ _What_.”

“My mom just wants to see me looking like a lady, okay? Jesus, do you have to be so nosy all the time?”

Pitch sputtered. “ _Me? I’m_ the -” She shook her head. “Oh no. No, you’re not dragging me into this. What is so important about having a dress for Christmas with your family? And don’t say it’s not important, because you wouldn’t be killing yourself trying to find one if it wasn’t.”

Pitchiner glared at the reject pile. “I told you. My mom wants me to look like a lady.”

“So tell her that pants are a perfectly ladylike -”

“You’ve met my mom.”

Pitch thought about small, round, pleasant Mrs. Pitchiner and how she directed her household with an iron fist that generals and dictators could only dream of, and nodded. “Fair enough. So a dress it is.”

Pitchiner nodded. “Yeah. And -” She bit off the words so quickly that Pitch wasn’t quite certain she’d even heard it. “Nah. Forget it.”

“What?”

“My dad, okay?” Cosima muttered.

“What about your dad?” Pitch asked, patiently, coaxingly.

“Nothing. Just when I went home last time he said some shit. It doesn’t matter.”

Pitch glanced pointedly at the pile of reject dresses, and Cosima rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “ _Fine_. He said that if his daughter had to be a dyke, at least I could dress like less of a stereotype, okay?” She picked up the blue dress and looked at it as though contemplating how best to turn it into a dangerous projectile, before opening her hand and letting it drop onto the floor with a soft whisper of satiny poly-rayon and a rasp of tulle.

Pitch realised she was glaring, and turned away from the dress before it could spontaneously combust. “Right. Get dressed,” she snapped, and it was more than telling that Pitchiner let the opportunity to make a dirty joke slip right past.

“What? Why?”

Pitch glared into the open suitcase. “We’re going shopping, and we’re not coming back until we find you the most drop-dead gorgeous damn dress that you’ve ever worn.” _And your parents can choke on it_ , she thought, but didn’t say.

Cosima gave a little half-laugh, half-snort. “Yeah, right. I’ve looked everywhere. They’re all these dinky prom dresses with no straps or something that looks like it should be on a stripper pole, on a girl about half my size -”

“That,” Pitch interrupted, rising from the bed to press a kiss to her girlfriend’s cheek, “is what you have me for. Now. Wear something comfortable and easy to get in and out of _.”_

“Why’s that, babe? You want easy access?”

“There’s the asshole I know,” Pitch snarked right back, stepping quickly out of range so Cosima couldn’t grab her and throw her onto the bed. Now was no time to get distracted, no matter how pleasant the distraction was. They had a mission, after all.

…

“Do I really have to try this on?”

“For the last time, _yes_.” Pitch tapped her foot impatiently, looking over at the curtain pulled closed over the changeroom door. “We’ve been over this a thousand times. Now, put it on, and come out so I can see.”

A heavy sigh was the only response she got, and the sound of shifting fabric. A moment later, the curtain drew back just enough for Pitchiner to stick her head out. “I’m wearing the stupid dress. Can I just take it off now?”

“ _No._ Come out and let me see.”

Another deep, heartfelt sigh, and Cosima pushed aside the curtain. “Fine. Can I take it off _now_? … Pitch? Are you okay?”

Pitch realised her mouth was hanging open, shut it, and swallowed hard. “Yes. That’s your dress.”

“Are you sure?” Pitchiner tugged awkwardly at the high collar, then surreptitiously tried to tug down the skirt. “You don’t think it’s a little…short?”

“Nooooo,” Pitch concluded, quickly. “No, it’s the perfect length. Any longer and it’d hit you right at the knees and cut your legs in half.” _And you can’t do that to such fantastic legs_ , she bit back.

“And this - do you call this a halter top? Why’s there a ring holding the collar to the front of the dress? And it’s got no sleeves, Pitch, I can’t wear sleeveless, I’ll look like a gorilla in a ballgown -”

“No. Stop talking right now or you’re going to talk yourself out of getting the hottest thing I’ve ever seen you in.”

Pitchiner stopped mid-sentence, half-turning to face the full-length mirror propped against the wall. She turned from side to side, giving her reflection a critical look. “…you really think so?” She straightened her back slightly, and flashed a quick smile at her reflection. “Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than anything else you’ve put me in.”

“Yes, you’re hilarious,” Pitch muttered. “Now go take it off so I can buy it.”

“What? Not a chance, dear, it’s my family and my dress, and _I_ will be buying.”

Pitch only smirked. “That’s what you think. Think of it as a Christmas present.”

She didn’t add _for me_. That would only give Pitchiner more ammo for her side of the argument.

One way or another, though, Pitch had a feeling it was going to be a very merry Christmas.


	6. Running Lines

“No, no, no, no, _no_!”

Pitch waved a hand dismissively at the stage, turning his back on the scene thereon. “I give up. If you plebeians are going to insist on butchering this piece of art, then you can do it without my assistance.”

The actors, left stranded without a director, looked around helplessly, one or two of them shrugging and jumping down from the stage, evidently interpreting the director’s temper tantrum as the end of rehearsal. One by one, they trickled away, leaving Jack the last onstage, hugging his arms and looking around awkwardly.

Not for the first time, Piki cursed his twin for his callous, demanding ways. Jack was an _actor_ , not one of Pitch’s rabble of mindless, self-absorbed students, whose complete lack of talent was rivaled only by their complete lack of self-awareness. Jack was _fragile_ , taking these kinds of things directly to heart. He’d be blaming himself for Pitch’s little hissy fit, Piki was sure, even though it was clearly Pitch’s own fault,. Just because he couldn’t manage his own actors -

Oh dear. Jack’s shoulders had curled inwards, and Piki knew that soon, they would begin to shake, exquisite shudders that should not be on display for the whole drama department to see. Piki started to his feet before he even knew that he was going to move, making his way up to the stage before Jack could retreat into the wings. “Jack!”

Jack jumped like a spooked horse, gasping in a breath at the sound of Piki’s voice, his lips parting like the petals of a rose just in the first flush of bloom. “P-Piki! I-I-I d-didn’t know you were - were here, uh -”

“How could I miss a single opportunity to see your genius in action?” Piki asked, gazing up at Jack. From here, the stage lights bathed Jack in an almost heavenly glow, and Piki was suddenly tempted to begin quoting Shakespeare.  _What light through yonder window breaks_ …

Jack licked his lips, stammering out a collection of nonsense syllables. “I-I-I-uh-buh-”

Jack was above him, as well, set quite literally on a pedestal. It could _be_ the balcony scene, Piki thought, and realised that his hands were shaking.

“It is the East,” he said, feeling his tongue beginning to stick to the roof of his mouth, “and you, Jack, are the sun.”

Jack’s crystalline orbs widened, probably in surprise. “I -” he started, but the word trailed off into a whimper.

Piki licked his lips, trying to remember the next few words. It was  _Shakespeare_ , dammit, how was it that Jack had the power to drive words he knew better than his own from his head?

“Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon -”

Jack went snow-white, then flushed red, and then, without another sound, turned and hurried from the stage. Overcome, no doubt, by Piki’s attention.

Piki smiled to himself as he walked back to his seat to fetch his coat. Really, that had gone better than he could have possibly expected. He hadn’t tripped over a single word, and surely Jack had appreciated being compared to Juliet? He’d have to borrow other poets’ words more often, if his own kept eluding him. But then, how could he possibly put such a marvel as Jack on paper? How could he record the clear, still depths of those eyes, the flutter of those pale lips, the way each blue vein traced a wandering trail so near the surface of milky skin, the way -

“Piki? What are _you_ doing here?”

Pitch had his arms folded across his chest, and had fixed his twin with the kind of glare usually directed by librarians at people making noise in the stacks. “You look like an old woman,” Piki said, by way of answer.

“Very funny.” Pitch turned up his nose. “I hope you haven’t been bothering my lead actor. He’s nervous enough as it is, without you coming in and shaking him up.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Piki sighed, thinking of the way Jack’s cheeks had coloured, the roses blooming there in slow motion. “We were only running lines.”


	7. Walkies

Coz hadn’t batted an eyelash when Jack had asked to help with walking Tarminator. The kid and the pug had definitely bonded, to the point where sometimes Coz was even a little jealous of how much attention Tarm gave to Jack, only sometimes, just a _tiiiiiny_ little bit. But he couldn’t exactly begrudge Jack his little fuzzy friend. Jack had few enough friends already.

He had wondered a little, though, when Jack had taken to tagging along when Coz himself took Tarm for walks. Jack tended to focus on the dog to the exclusion of anyone else, which might just have been because he felt more comfortable with animals than with his frequently noisy, unpredictable, and difficult human friends. He’d asked on one of their walks, “Are you sure I’m not cutting in on your puppy time?” to which Jack had only responded with a blush and a hastily stammered change of subject.

It wasn’t until many walks later that Jack revealed his real purpose in seeking out both animal and human companionship.

“You’re a g-good listener,” he said, out of the blue, watching intently as Tarm peed on the pole of the sign announcing the existence of the dog park.

“Thank…you?” Coz finally managed to reply. What did you say to something like that, coming from someone who barely spoke at the best of times?

“I m-mean it,” Jack continued, the slightest tinge of vehemence threading into his quiet voice. “Y-you never interrupt like P-P- like some p-people do. A-and you d-don’t care if I d-d-don’t have anything to s-say for a while.”

“I just figured you don’t talk much,” Coz shrugged. The apples of Jack’s cheeks coloured, and he stuffed both hands into the front pocket of his overlarge sweatshirt, staring down at the blissful look on Tarminator’s little pug face. “Hey, I don’t mean it in a bad way! I mean, look at our house, nobody ever shuts up for five minutes.”

The most miniscule of nods told him that Jack agreed. Coz, taking this as a good sign, nudged him with an elbow. “And you know Pitch, the only time he’s not talking is when he’s screaming.”

It was worth it to see Jack turn bright red, and Coz fancied he could even see little wisps of steam rising from under the heavy scarf wrapped around his neck. “I-I-I-I w-wouldn’t know,” Jack managed, at last, ducking his face into the scarf.

“Would you like to?”

Coz hadn’t thought it was possible for Jack to turn any more red. “What? N-no! I m-mean, n-n-not that he isn’t - I m-mean -”

“Hey, I’m just messing with ya, kiddo.” Coz clapped Jack on the back, remembering to keep it light as he did so. Jack wasn’t the same kind of delicate as Pitch; he wouldn’t whip back if Coz hit him too hard, he’d probably just shatter. “But…thanks. It’s a real compliment.”

“I’m g-glad you think so,” Jack managed, and even under the scarf, Coz thought he saw the faintest hint of a smile.

“You do know that this means you’re allowed to actually _talk_ to me, right?” he asked, giving Jack a poke in the shoulder for good measure. Tarminator barked twice, excited yaps, and Jack actually giggled.

“I - I’ll k-keep it in m-mind.”

“Good. ’s not healthy, bottling everything up. Trust me, I’m totally an expert,” Coz said airily, as Jack bent down to give Tarm a pat. “Although,” he continued, with deliberate casualness, “if you really wanted to know how Pitch sounds in bed…”

Jack didn’t stop blushing all the way home.


	8. Something Something Spirits

Piki wasn’t sure what woke him, the sharp prickles of the pine needles that dug into his back or the early-morning sunlight flooding crystalline between the trees, but something grabbed him and shoved him from the blissful deep dark of unconsciousness into full wakefulness, without so much as a few moments of blinking and bleary eyes to let him adjust.

He sat up, stretched, and wondered why he was outside. It wasn’t often that he woke up in the middle of the woods behind campus; in fact, it had happened only once before, after a memorable experience involving Proto, hallucinogenic drugs, and a serious lapse in judgement on Piki’s part. Still, it wasn’t unheard-of for students to wind up waking up alone, amnesiac, and - Piki glanced down - naked in the patch of trees leading up the mountain, especially after the liberal application of copious amounts of alcohol the night before. Piki wasn’t exactly a student, and copious amounts of alcohol did not regularly figure into his evening plans, but it was always possible, especially if Jack were somehow involved.

He pushed himself to his feet, wincing at a sudden pain in his abdomen, just below his navel, and discovering that he couldn’t put too much weight on his left arm without a flash of white-hot pain from the shoulder. Probably dislocated, he diagnosed haphazardly. What had _happened_ last night? Hopefully he hadn’t gotten blindingly drunk and tried to climb into Jack’s dorm room. Again.

He dusted himself off and looked around, hoping to take his bearings and also find his clothes. That was strange - this little clearing was familiar, but only because Piki liked to take long walks on the mountainside, to revel in the solitude, the scents of growth and decay, the hushed, green silence, the way life sprang forth from death in every direction. This clearing was a good mile away from campus. There was no reason for him to be waking up here.

He looked down, scanning the ground around him for any sign of his clothes, or a trail, or anything that might explain what he was doing this far from civilization. Nothing but dead leaves and scattered pine needles met his scrutinizing glare, a bed that deadened the sound of his footsteps and cushioned the feeling of the earth under his feet. If anyone had walked here, there wouldn’t be many signs of their passing.

Piki turned around, slowly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the trail that wound its way down the mountainside to the campus, and something white caught his eye. It was long, almost as long as he was tall, and lying, half-covered, in the leaves. Piki knelt down to take a closer look, brushing away some of the detritus.

He froze, mid-brush, when he saw what it was that lay hidden by decay on the forest floor.

…

Hours must have passed by the time Piki finally broke into the house that his brother shared with that insufferable rabble of… _people_ , the Neanderthal that Pitch insisted on fucking and the cousin who was most likely a serial killer, or at the very least operating on a very different plane than most normal people.

It was the latter that Piki was counting on now.

Proto was reading something when Piki burst through the door, and he didn’t look up, didn’t flinch, at the sudden bang of the door against the wall. Piki didn’t let it stop him, although his steps did slow as he approached his cousin, growing heavier and more reluctant the nearer he got.

“This is idiotic,” he muttered, under his breath. And, as though it were the most rousing speech ever uttered, he straightened his back, steeled himself, took the last step forward and snatched the book from Proto’s hand, flinging it across the room and, entirely unintentionally, into the glass front of the china cabinet.

Proto didn’t move until the symphony of smashes and crashes had died away, simply sitting as though frozen in place, still reading a book that Piki couldn’t see. And then, with glacial slowness, like a cobra rising from a basket, he raised his head, and looked directly at Piki.

Piki let out a huge breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, a breath that sounded more like a sob. “Thank whatever gods might be watching, thank you, _thank you_ , you can see me, it’s been hours and everyone’s looked right through me, even _walked_ through me, I thought if anyone could do it it would have to be you -”

Proto’s gaze didn’t fix on Piki, though, but kept rising, looking past Piki,  _through_ him, to the destruction that his book had wreaked on the china cabinet. Piki felt his heart sink through him like a stone through water, as a small frown crossed Proto’s face, before he shrugged, minutely, and started to lever himself out of his chair, still focused on the china cabinet.

“Oh,” Piki sighed, and it was barely a sound, barely an escaping breath. That was it, then.

He turned back to face the door, only for a warm hand to settle unexpectedly on his shoulder. Under any other circumstances, Piki would have jumped, would have screamed, would have shouted about not sneaking up on people. Instead, though, he simply brought one hand up to touch Proto’s, unable to believe that it was real.

“You seem a little upset,” Proto’s quiet, unnerving tones said softly, too close to Piki’s ear.

“Upset? Of course I’m upset! I woke up in the middle of nowhere with no clothes on, I haven’t been able to find anyone who’ll look at me or talk to me or even seems to notice that I exist, people just walk _through_ me like I’m not even there and _I still haven’_ _t found my clothes -_ ” Piki realised that he was shaking, trembling like a leaf, and he clung to Proto’s hand as though it were the only real thing in the world.

“Oh. Is that all?” Proto asked, with a slight sigh, as though of disappointment. “I thought you might actually need my help.”

Piki opened his mouth to shout, and then thought better of it. He could scream himself hoarse, and it wouldn’t change Proto’s mind once it was made up.

Bribery and coercion, however, just might be close enough to whatever twisted language Proto spoke that they might be awfully persuasive.

“Well, don’t let me _inconvenience_ you,” Piki spat, loath to step forward and lose the last point of contact he had with the human world and yet loath to continue standing there letting Proto touch him as though his anger meant nothing. “I just thought you might like to see the body I found in the woods.”

Proto gave a little hum in the back of his throat, the same kind of hum that he gave whenever Piki was at the height of impotent rage or declined an offer of home-baked zucchini quinoa muffins. “What makes you think that I’d want to see a body you found in the woods?” The way he said it made it clear that he wasn’t asking because it would be absurd to assume he’d want to see a corpse; more that it would be absurd to assume he couldn’t see one whenever he wanted to.

“This one’s a little bit different,” Piki answered, brightly, feeling like the edges of his sudden smile were going to crack all the way across his face until the top of his head fell off.

“Is it really?”

“Yes.” Piki dug his nails into the back of Proto’s hand, clinging desperately to the only thing that made sense. He nearly choked on the words as they bubbled up out of his throat. “Because, you see, it’s mine.”


	9. Puttin' On the Glitz

Coz wasn’t sure how he let himself get roped into these things. One thrift-shopping excursion with Proto’s creepy ass had been more than enough for one lifetime, and yet, here he was, holding a basket full of bizarre odds and ends and trying not to slip into a coma from sheer boredom.

“Tell me again why I had to be the one you dragged along with you?” Coz asked the changeroom door, imagining Proto, behind it, wearing that insufferably smug little grin that always made Coz want to wipe it off his face.

“Because you were home,” was the answer, stated so matter-of-factly that Pitchiner felt momentarily idiotic for having even thought to question it.

“Yeah, but why’d you need somebody to go with you in the first place? Can’t you go hunting for -” He risked a peek into the basket, gave an exaggerated shudder, and quickly shifted it out off his line of sight. “Headless cherubs and old porcelain dolls and shit, without needing adult supervision?”

A rustle from the changeroom. “Don’t be silly. Now, I need you to tell me how this looks.”

The door swung open, and Coz’ mind went momentarily blank.

The first thing he noticed was that Proto _glittered_. A swath of sequined fabric draped across surprisingly well-shaped shoulders and fell in an elegant sweep to just above Proto’s ankles, a slit in the dress - yes, _dress_ , Coz thought, and swallowed hard - showing glimpses of a slender leg. Coz had only a moment to wonder if Proto had actually bothered to shave his legs in anticipation of this, before Proto twirled, showing off the back of the dress - or, rather, lack thereof. The skirt fell in gathers from a single huge fake jewel, which rested just above the curve of his ass; the rest of Proto’s back was bare.

“Well?”

Coz blinked and shook his head, fixing Proto and his smug little grin with a death glare. “This is some kind of test, isn’t it?”

Proto’s smile didn’t budge. “Isn’t everything?”

Coz had to admit, to a mind like a corkscrew, it probably made a kind of weird sense. Realising that arguing would only keep them stuck there longer, he just nodded. “ ’s too short,” he said, and Proto’s smile turned abruptly and perfectly upside down. He looked down at his feet, and gave a little hum.

“So it is.” The smile returned, a little wider this time. “You’ll have to help me pick out one that fits.”

Coz didn’t bother trying to stifle his groan.


	10. Read It and Weep

Piki has just sat down to breakfast (toast and black coffee, nothing too decadent) when someone pounds on his door. His heart leaps for an instant before he realizes it can’t possibly be Jack; whoever is hammering at his door is far more enthusiastic than that sweet, shy boy could ever bring himself to express.

“Piki! I know you’re in there, open up!”

And Jack would never impose himself on someone else’s peaceful morning like this. Piki rolls his eyes at the sound of his brother’s voice, wondering what has occurred to drag Pitch out of bed and up to his door. At least Pitch doesn’t sound panicked or upset, although, Piki reflects, if he were, he’d at least have an excuse.

Piki takes his time getting up and crossing to the door, leaving Pitch to stew over whatever he feels is so urgent in petty revenge for the interruption. But when Piki finally undoes the deadbolt and swings the door open, Pitch is still smiling, huge and smarmy. Piki only has a moment of exquisite dread before Pitch shoves a paper at his face.

“Read it and _weep_.”

“Good morning to you too, brother dear.” Piki snatches the broadsheet from his twin’s hand, noticing that his glower doesn’t seem to affect Pitch’s good mood in the slightest. Something is afoot, and despite himself, Piki feels a spark of curiosity flickering into life. “And what brings you to my door at this hour?”

Pitch gestures broadly towards the paper that Piki now holds, puffing out his scrawny chest like a little pigeon. “Page seven, theatre review.”

Piki studies his twin’s expression carefully, looking for any hint that might explain what he’s about to read. Pitch’s smirk offers no new information, though, so at last he sighs and turns his attention to the aforementioned theatre review.

“Oh,” Piki says, at last, after he’s finished scanning the review. “How nice that the reviewer decided to give your amateur production a bit of promotion.” His eyes flick up to meet Pitch’s on ‘amateur’, and it warms his black little heart to see rage flickering there.

“That’s not what it’s about and you know it.” Pitch jabs a finger at the review so forcefully that if Piki hadn’t drawn the paper back towards himself, it might have torn through. “Look at that. That’s a five-star rating. _Five stars,_ and their reviewer called it 'nightmarish’, 'Kafkaesque’, and 'disturbing on a fundamental level’.” Pitch crosses both arms across his chest, leaning back with a wicked smile. “If I recall correctly, not even your most celebrated work earned a full five stars?”

Piki realises he’s biting into his lower lip only when he tastes blood. “I’ve never put much stock in the opinions of small-time theatre reviewers working for local papers,” he says, with a calmness that hopefully doesn’t reveal how he’s seething inside.

“Well, you won’t have to for much longer.” Pitch’s grin grows wider, and the gleam in his eyes is like a knife. “The response to this play has been so good that I’ve applied for a grant to take it to some bigger stages. Before long, you’ll be seeing five-star reviews in every one of those prissy glossy publications that I know you follow obsessively, don’t even try to pretend you don’t.”

“Congratulations,” Piki says, and even he can almost feel ice dripping from the word. “Hopefully your little project doesn’t end in disappointment. Again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was in the middle of breakfast.”

He shuts the door before Pitch can say anything more, and waits until he hears retreating footsteps to tear the paper in his hands in two.


	11. On Thin Ice

Ice crackles underfoot.

The sky above is perfectly black, a darkness that Jack hasn’t seen since moving to the city. There, light pollution renders every overcast night rosy and twilit. Here, though, there is only the absolute darkness that Jack remembers from the farm and those moonless nights when a thick blanket of cloud would smother them all in an oppressive, impenetrable dark.

Even with the dark pressing in all around, though, the ice underfoot glows.

Jack lets out a breath, and it hangs in the air before him, a little white puff in the thick, choking blackness. He’s cold, but not as cold as he should be, without so much as a sweater and barefoot in the middle of a world of ice. The cold that fills him is not sharp and bitter as a real winter, but dull and grey and insidious, seeping into the marrow of his bones.

He tries taking a step forward, and the ice shrieks underfoot with a young girl’s voice, high, thin, and wordless. Deep cracks tear through it like gunshots, tracing crazed black lines across the pristine, luminous expanse of ice.

Jack hugs his bare arms, and shivers, and doesn’t take another step.

The ice continues to crack and sway underfoot nevertheless, almost toppling Jack over more than once. The cracks grow wider, deeper, something black and more like smoke than water seeping up from beneath them with every slight movement. A questing tendril brushes Jack’s bare foot, and he jerks away - whatever it is, its touch is colder than the air or the ice, colder than anything Jack’s ever felt, freezing on contact.

Little by little, the vast plain of ice breaks up, until Jack is left floating precariously atop a lone floe in a sea as dark and as infinite as the starless sky. Alone, adrift, without the slightest hope of reaching shore, the dull, creeping cold slowly turning his limbs to lead. He’ll freeze to death, Jack realises, without excitement, and he won’t even notice until it’s already too late. The thought settles on his shoulders like snow, soft and deceptively heavy, pushing him slowly, so slowly, down towards the dark sea.

“ _T_ _his_ is his idea of entertainment?”

The voice seems to come from the ocean, from the sky, from the whole bleak world. It isn’t loud, but it’s everywhere, creeping into Jack’s ears much as the cold has into his bones.

“You haven’t even screamed,” the voice continues, and Jack feels vaguely guilty for disappointing it even as he boggles at its words.

“W-w-wh -”

Huge, luminous eyes, blue as chips of midday sky, blink open in the still vastness of the sea, rising to reveal a moon-white face with a smile that looks as placid and as treacherous as the sea it rose from. A hand formed of that smoky material rises with it, a single pointed finger extending to prod Jack in the very centre of his chest. A flash of biting, burning cold tears through him from the point of contact, and Jack pulls back, wrapping both arms around his midsection and letting out a faint whimper.

A small frown crosses the pale face, and that strange everywhere-voice sighs, “You can do better than that.”

And suddenly, the world is full of screaming.

The sound shoots through Jack like a lightning bolt, painfully electrifying every nerve and shorting out every thought but panic. The voice is young and female and scared and oh, so familiar.

“Jack! Jack, help!”

“No,” Jack breathes, digging his fingernails into his arms until it almost hurts, even through the numbing cold. “No, leave - leave her a-alone -”

“Jack, where are you? It’s so dark here! Don’t leave me alone!” The words are a mocking echo of his own, and Jack turns, away from the grinning, pale face, to see only more endless darkness.

He bites down on his lip, worrying it open, and the blood that pours over his teeth tastes bitter and metallic and cold, so cold. “Y-you’re not real,” he manages.

“ _Please_ , Jack! It’s so cold and I’m scared!”

“ _You’re not real!_ ” Jack shouts, clapping both hands over his ears, but the voice persists, vibrating through his bones, as though it’s coming from somewhere inside him.

“You left me here all alone, Jack! Why did you leave me? Why did you forget about me?”

“I didn’t -” Jack pleads, but the dark water is rising, and his sister’s eyes stare accusingly out of its depths, two distant stars in the dark.

“Don’t _ever_ leave me again.”

Small, childish, cold white arms reach out of the water, tug at Jack’s legs, wrap around him, embrace him, enfold him, drag him down, down -

He wakes, with a start, to find himself staring into a frozen, fanged snarl, dead glass eyes staring out of a furry face inches away from his own.

It’s almost a relief to scream.

…

“See? Much more effective.”

The more human-shaped figure, clad in oily black, frowns, but the smoky column with a face like a mask only smiles, pleasantly, before dissolving into a nearby shadow.

“I still think my way is better,” the first figure mutters under its breath, before following its partner into the dark.


	12. Gifted

Pitchiner had assumed that he’d have to ask Pitch about Jack’s birthday present, and had been bracing himself for a bunch of screaming and sulking and Pitch insisting that if he wasn’t enough for Pitchiner, that maybe Pitchiner would be better off with someone else instead. He was under no illusions that asking Pitch to even just let the kid watch them go at it wouldn’t be taken like a grievous personal insult, and even if he knew Pitch liked Jack and would probably get over it for the kid’s sake, it’d still be a painful couple of weeks before Pitch would stop sulking, suck it up, and agree.

So it came as a pleasant surprise when it was Pitch who asked first.

Coz was in the middle of sucking a particularly large and dark hickey into the hollow of Pitch’s shoulder when Pitch pushed him away, succeeding after a few tries, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “If you’re going to force Jack to listen to us enjoying ourselves, the least you could do is invite him to join us.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, babe,” Coz answered automatically, carefully scanning Pitch’s face for some kind of clue as to whether he’d just got off the hook or if he was going to be sleeping alone for the next week.

“Yes you do, you’re a terrible liar,” Pitch retorted dispassionately, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. Pitchiner chose to take this as a good sign; after all, Pitch wasn’t screaming yet. “You’ve been tipping him off every time we’ve fucked for the past month or so, and don’t even try to say you haven’t because we both know that’s a lie. You’re about as subtle as a firework.”

Coz shrugged. He couldn’t really argue with that. “You gonna kick me out for that?”

Pitch drew in a long breath, still looking at the ceiling. Just when Pitchiner was starting to squirm, he turned back, fixing Coz with a look that could have cut glass. “Don’t be an idiot. But next time you’re not letting Jack just sit in the bathroom alone listening.”

“Don’t blame me if he passes out before we can get him to the bedroom,” Coz said by way of answer, and Pitch’s lips twitched, betraying how hard he was working not to smile.

“Get over here and finish what you were doing, you brute,” Pitch sighed, and Pitchiner gladly dove back in, attacking his neck with renewed vigour.

It might have just been his imagination, but he thought Pitch screamed louder and more theatrically than usual.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Rule 63.

The day that Piki’s play opens in London, Pitch goes to bed and doesn’t come out.

Pitchiner first starts to wonder when she gets home from practice, sweaty and disgusting, drops a sloppy, exaggerated kiss on the square inch of deathly pale forehead that peeks out above Pitch’s covers, and gets nothing in response. Pitch doesn’t even flinch backwards, and for an instant the terrifying certainty that her girlfriend has dropped dead – or at least comatose - from another seizure freezes Pitchiner in place. As soon as she can move again, she tears the covers off, which usually would prompt at least a shriek and a few scratches to her forearms, but Pitch only makes a low disgruntled noise and turns her face into the pillow.

Pitchiner lets out a long sigh of relief and smacks Pitch lightly across the ass. “Hey, babe, not up yet? What’re you trying to do, hibernate?”

Pitch groans and buries her face a little deeper into the pillow, not even flailing at Pitchiner to get off. Something, Pitchiner realises, is very very wrong. This calls for desperate measures.

Pitch doesn’t respond to one long, slow, wet lick up the nape of her neck. Undaunted, Pitchiner tries again, this time dragging a muffled groan out of Pitch. A third, this one accompanied by a sharp nip at Pitch’s earlobe, finally gets her to roll over, but only for long enough to fix Pitchiner with a venomous glare, yank the pillow over her head, and roll over onto her face again.

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Pitchiner complains, flopping down heavily beside Pitch on the bed. “C’mon, what’s the deal?”

She thinks the words that Pitch growls into the mattress are meant to be ‘Go away’, but it doesn’t faze her in the slightest. At least now Pitch is _talking_. That’s an improvement.

“Can’t understand you, dear,” she says brightly, running one hand down Pitch’s side to sneak a questing hand up under her tank top. “If you’ve got something to say, you’ll have to come out and say it to my face.”

Pitch swats ineffectually at Pitchiner’s arm when she starts to walk her fingers up Pitch’s ribs, but she doesn’t pull her head from under the pillow, and so Pitchiner doesn’t stop. She gives Pitch’s breast a playful squeeze, which, as it turns out, is the final straw. Pitch sits up abruptly, smacking Pitchiner full in the face with the pillow with enough force that it actually hurts. “Do you _mind_?”

Pitchiner pulls the pillow gently out of Pitch’s grasp, mouthing ‘ouch’ before she manages to crack a smile. “What, did I interrupt your terribly important wallowing in self-pity?”

Pitch’s scowl turns more murderous, if that’s even possible, and Pitchiner blinks. “Oh, don’t tell me I actually _-_ ” she starts, but that’s all she gets out before Pitch snatches the pillow back and starts flailing at her with it. “Ow! What the hell?”

“What the hell yourself! Why can’t you just _leave – me – alone_?”

“What, just leave you lying there playing dead?”

“ _Yes!_ ” With one final blow from the pillow, Pitch drops down bodily onto the bed and pulls it back over her head. Pitchiner waits a few seconds to see if she’ll do anything else, before prodding her in the arm with one finger.

“Pitch?”

A muffled groan is all she gets in return.

“What’s the matter?”

This time, there is no response.

Pitchiner lets out an exaggerated sigh, lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms out, palms out, until all of her fingers pop. “Fine, then. Don’t tell me. You know what, I don’t even want to know.” She sneaks a glance down at Pitch, who hasn’t moved an inch, and with a grin that bears not even a passing resemblance to innocent, stretches out next to her. “ ‘m pretty beat from practice, though. Think I’ll just take a nap.”

She waits another few seconds before throwing an arm over Pitch’s shoulders.

Normally, this would earn her at least a shrill complaint about athletes and their complete lack of personal hygiene, possibly accompanied by a few vicious kicks to the shins. Today, though, Pitch only tenses up, going taut as a piano wire, before slowly relaxing again. Pitchiner takes this as her cue to shuffle a little closer, rolling Pitch over onto her side, pulling her close. Pitch doesn’t even try to struggle, only making a few cursory noises of protest when Pitchiner drapes one leg over both of hers. And even while she mutters her vague protest, she’s already wriggling backwards to press herself more comfortably into the curve of Pitchiner’s body.

Pitchiner grins to herself, reaching up to brush the pillow off of Pitch’s face, and on impulse, gives her girlfriend’s cheek a quick peck. “You’re cute when you’re not yelling about being the little spoon,” she offers, and Pitch half-snorts, a sound that might be an aborted laugh.

“You’re a better pillow when you’re not constantly babbling,” is her only retort. And then, “If you don’t pull up the damn covers I’m leaving you here alone and going to wallow in your bed instead.”

“I don’t know, having you in my bed sounds pretty good,” Pitchiner growls directly into Pitch’s ear, and smiling when it earns her a slap to the knee.

“Stop that, you animal.” Pitch’s voice rises, goes a little breathy when Pitchiner nuzzles into the crook of her shoulder and nips at the unmarred skin there. “And you – ah! – smell like a locker room.”

“Yes I do,” Pitchiner agrees, proudly, before blowing a raspberry on Pitch’s neck. “Should we take this to the showers?”

Pitch shakes her head, and tugs Pitchiner’s arm a little farther over herself. “Weren’t you too tired out from practice?” The words sound like they’re meant to be biting, but they come out sounding soft and sleepy instead.

“Mnh, yeah,” Pitchiner mumbles, lacing her fingers through Pitch’s and giving a reassuring squeeze. “Maybe later, then. After we’re done hibernating.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More homophobic language in this one. None of the Pitches have particularly understanding parents, apparently.

Piki’s sitting on the narrow bed on his side of the room when Pitch storms in, knees drawn up and a slim black volume propped open against them. He doesn’t look up when Pitch slams the door, only adjusts his stupid little glasses and flips the page.

”Why did you do that?” Pitch demands, when his dramatic entrance fails to garner the desired reaction. “We all know Great-Grandfather Black is a warped, withered old tyrant, but _most_ of us are smart enough not to tell him! You know he’s down there telling everyone who’ll listen that he’s going to cut you out of the will? Of course they’re all cooing and fawning and sucking up just in case he’ll give them your share, the vultures.” When Piki still fails to respond, Pitch crosses the room, sitting heavily down on the bed by his twin’s feet. The elderly mattress creaks and bounces, nearly toppling him back off the bed and onto the floor, but the only response from Piki is a soft, dry shifting sound as he turns another page.

“Say something,” Pitch complains, leaning back against the wall. “Not that I’m not impressed, everyone’s losing their minds, Cousin Ekaterina looks like she’s about to explode - but what on Earth possessed you to say all that?”

“Everybody says those things,” Piki retorts, to his knees.

“Maybe, but not _to Great-Grandfather Black’s face_.” Pitch lets out a long sigh, folding his arms across his chest. “Really, for all that you’re the family genius, you can be shockingly idiotic when it comes to -“

Piki shuts his book with a sudden, sharp _snap_ , making Pitch jump. His voice is as cool and level as ever when he says, “Fine. Next time, I’ll just nod and smile and agree when he goes off on you for being a sick filthy sodomite for parading that oaf you’re fucking around in front of our family, just so as not to cause a _fuss_. I swear, you just get more and more like our parents.” The usual cutting edge to his words seems blunted, and Pitch feels his stomach drop with every word, leaving a sinking heaviness in its place.

"You didn’t. _”_

Piki clears his throat and adjusts his glasses.

"You did.” Pitch groans, pressing a hand to his face, dragging the palm slowly down to his chin. “ _What_ possessed you? Everybody says those things too, it’s never bothered us before.”

"To our faces?” Piki shoots back, finally meeting Pitch’s eyes. For a moment, as they both glare, the tension is so thick that it feels like the air could snap like a violin string at any second.

Piki breaks first. It’s just the slightest twitch of his lips, but it’s enough to set Pitch off, and in seconds, they’re both laughing like they’re going to die, great sobbing howls that have them both clutching their sides.

"Did you - did you _see_ his face?”

"I can’t believe you actually -”

“ _I_ can’t believe I actually -“

“Mother spilled her drink all down Father’s front when you started shouting -”

“I’m surprised her head didn’t burst!”

“I’m surprised _his_ didn’t!”

It takes them both a long moment to catch their breath. By the time he can see straight again, Pitch has tears in his eyes and a stitch in his side.

"Thank you,” he says, after a moment’s deliberation.

Piki shrugs. “Don’t mention it. But, ah, if ever poor Jack gets dragged to one of our family affairs -“

“You don’t even have to ask.” Pitch glances across at his brother, a smirk sneaking across his face. “You filthy sodomite.”

Getting smacked with Piki’s book is absolutely worth it.


End file.
